Gingrich rollout revives discipline questions

Newt Gingrich’s bizarre launch of his expected 2012 presidential bid, in which he scooped his own news in a morning radio interview and took just one question at the brief official afternoon event, was a déjà vu moment for many political veterans.

The message: Welcome Back to Newt’s World, where an enduring axiom is to expect the unexpected.

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As a House member, and in his later iteration as a pundit, Gingrich could get away with running a freewheeling operation. But now, as he’s poised to make a bid for the White House, the most immediate question he’ll face is whether he — and his sprawling political enterprise — can muster the message discipline demanded by the rigors of a national campaign.

In 1994, the brash new House speaker would stride through Capitol Hill hallways making policy announcements to small groups of reporters while his press and policy aides sat clueless in their offices.

In one Georgia campaign swing in 1995, he called for the mass execution of drug smugglers because it would drive up recruitment costs for drug-runners in Colombia and Mexico.

When facing a rebellion from within his own caucus after midterm losses in November 1998, the self-proclaimed “transformational” historic figure issued a brief statement to about 20 reporters camped out at his office that said essentially: I quit.

More than a decade after that fateful night and at least one prior aborted presidential bid in 2007, Gingrich now must conquer the hubris, bravado and lack of restraint that contributed to the end of his historic speakership.

“The defining issue is does he have the judgment and character to be president of the United States. One of the biggest questions about Newt Gingrich throughout his career has been his executive judgment,” said Merle Black, a political scientist at Emory University in Atlanta.

“His four years as the most important leader in Congress were not a success. He had policy successes, but in keeping his party together and supportive of his leadership, he was not a success. That is the closest analogue to him serving as president,” he added.

The repeated misfires of his campaign rollout provide ominous signs. Gingrich’s team built anticipation for a full-blown presidential announcement earlier this week, only to retrench when insiders realized legal issues remained unresolved. The scaled-back event on Thursday turned strange when the former speaker took one question and bolted from what was supposed to be his comeback moment.

Despite the rocky start, close friends and advisers say Gingrich has grown in his years outside the public eye.